In this next segment on mental health related to different disorders, I will be covering schizophrenia.

This disorder occurs at similar rates in all ethnic groups and affects men and women equally, although men tend to experience symptoms earlier in life than women. It usually does not occur after the age of 45 and rarely in children. It most commonly presents in the late teens or early adulthood.

Early symptoms may include irritability or tense feelings, trouble concentrating or trouble sleeping. Later on in the process it can cause problems with thinking, emotions and behavior. Some of these behaviors might be hearing or seeing things that are not there, isolating themselves, delusions, problems paying attention and thoughts that jump rapidly between different topics.

Positive, negative and cognitive symptoms are the three primary broad categories that the symptoms of schizophrenia fall into. Positive symptoms are the aberrant and psychotic behaviors you would not see in healthy people such as hallucinations.

This would be something like seeing, hearing, feeling or smelling something that no one else can. Hearing voices is the most common hallucination. The voice or voices may talk directly to the person and tell them to do things or to warn them of some danger that doesn’t exist.

Delusions are also positive symptoms that the schizophrenic believes even if someone proves that they are not real or illogical. They may believe that someone on television is talking to them directly or that they are a famous television or movie personality. Sometimes there are delusions of persecution where they think someone is plotting against them, trying to harm them in some way like poisoning or that someone is beaming certain types of rays into their brain.

One thought disorder the schizophrenic may experience is called disorganized thinking where they can’t organize their thoughts or connect them in a logical manner. Another is called thought blocking, where the person stops speaking in the middle of a sentence as though it was just erased from his or her head. A third thought disorder associated with schizophrenia is called neologisms, where the person just makes up meaningless words.

Schizophrenia in many cases is a debilitating disease and though there is no cure, treatments that work well are available. Many times the schizophrenic does not realize he or she has a problem and a family member may have to be involved with getting the person into treatment.

This varies from state to state but when a person becomes a danger to themselves or others the family members may get the police or court involved in the process of getting the person in for treatment if they are not willing or able to check themselves in.

A mental health professional will do an assessment, many times in an emergency room to determine the need for inpatient treatment.

This can include cognitive behavioral therapy to help with their thoughts and perceptions as well as antipsychotic medications. Many improve enough to lead independent and satisfying lives.

Tommy Eddy is a mental health professional at Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center.